The biggest bastard in the valley. The original music business manager. Feared, hated, revered—Allen Klein was like no one the music industry had seen before. The hard-nosed businessman who came from humble beginnings became infamous in the 70’s for allegedly catalyzing the Beatles’ breakup and robbing the Rolling Stones, but the truth is both more complex and more fascinating. As the manager of the Stones and then the Beatles—not to mention Sam Cooke, the Who, Donovan, the Kinks, and numerous other performers—Klein taught young soon-to-be legends how to be businessmen as well as rock stars. In so doing, Klein made millions for his clients and changed music forever. In the new biography ALLEN KLEIN: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock and Roll (On-Sale: 6/23), veteran music business journalist Fred Goodman uses unprecedented access to Klein’s archives to tell the full story of how the Beatles broke up, how the Stones achieved the greatest commercial success in rock history, and how the music business became what it is today.
MORE ABOUT ALLEN KLEIN
The story of a manager more often vilified than any other in the history of rock.At his peak, Allen Klein (1931-2009) managed both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but both relationships led to legal action and acrimony, with Klein largely depicted as unconscionably rapacious even by the dubious ethical standards of the music business. Since former Rolling Stone editor Goodman has previously explored the seamier side of rock's underbelly (most notably in The Mansion on the Hill, 1997), readers might expect him to pile more dirt on the legacy of his late subject. Instead, he humanizes Klein with a nuanced and multidimensional account of how a boy raised in an orphanage looked for validation by courting artists who had been cheated by their record companies and promising to rectify their financial situations. The author benefits from access to previously unavailable material, provided by Klein's son without editorial stipulations. "When you hired Klein, you hired a pistolero," writes Goodman. "He'd run the rustlers and varmints outs of Dodge, but then you'd have to figure out how to live with a mercenary in the sheriff's office." The author shows how Klein earned the trust of Sam Cooke and how he came to be seen by both John Lennon and Keith Richards as a kindred spirit while arousing the enmity of Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. (Goodman also acknowledges that Klein engaged in a conflict of interest in buying the rights to the Stones music while he was managing them and shifting sides on the "My Sweet Lord" copyright suit.) Klein loved a battle, and he would engage in litigation long after it was to his benefit to settle. But Goodman builds a convincing case that Klein fought the good fight for his artists and that depicting a man in his business as greedy is akin to calling a lion a carnivore. Klein changed the way rock does business. In this balanced, fascinating, and well-written biography, Goodman gives him credit where it's due. – Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW
ABOUT FRED GOODMAN
Fred Goodman is a former Rolling Stone editor and the author of the books Fortune’s Fool, The Secret City, and The Mansion on the Hill, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Ralph J. Gleason Award for Best Music Book.